The Implementation of the Belief System in the TV Production of Myths

This article analyses the specific mode of production of the meaning of Vietnam Television’s newscast from a semio-pragmatic perspective. Drawing on TV news images, we examine the emergence of essentialist myths in national TV news. Myths, the drivers of symbolic and spiritual formation, constitute not only distinct content but also the model generating the meaning that allows for mythical experience to be examined, based on the different “regimes of belief” (Veyne, 1983). Although news discourse remains trapped in the realm of orthodox communist propaganda, the TV production of myths in the current context reveals a gradual shift in this discourse towards the realm of national myth.